There is a wide spread use of curtains and the like such as drapes and portieres by consumers and businesses for many aesthetic and practical reasons. In the home, it is convenient to separate one portion of a room from another using a curtain such as a shower curtain. Window curtains and drapes are also used to beautify homes as well as offices. It is also common to use a curtain type arrangement to separate a fireplace from the remainder of the room. Curtains are also used in manufacturing facilities to separate or define areas.
One of the common elements to curtains, drapes and the like is that they are usually mounted onto a rod and the intended use requires the mounting to allow movement of the curtain or at least portions of the curtain along the rod. Typical, the rod has a uniform cross section, usually circular.
In many situations, the curtains are not mounted directly on the rod. Instead, rings or clips are used to connect portions of a curtain to a rod. A typical shower curtain requires about a dozen clips and each clip must be manually attached to both the shower curtain and the rod. Furthermore, these clips are visible after the shower curtain has been mounted. Thus, a market has developed for clips which have some aesthetic appeal to compensate for the necessity have having exposed clips.
It is a common practice to have relatively small window drapes and the like include a sewn potion to define a tubular portion near one end of the material for mounting onto a rod. The rod must be removed from its mounting on the wall or window and threaded through the tubular portion.
Another arrangement for attaching curtains and the like to rods uses a plurality of clips which penetrate into the curtain like needles to attach to the curtain and another portion of each clip attaches either directly to the rod or to rings attached to the rod.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a simple and effective accessory for attaching a curtain or the like to a rod while maintaining an aesthetic appearance. The present invention overcome the difficulty in the prior art of easily attaching a curtain or the like to a rod without the necessity of threading the rod or the use of support clips while maintaining an attractive appearance to the mounted curtain.